Recently, content provider services providing content data such as video data and music data via the Internet are widespread. Such content provider services are realized by a reception device possessed by a user displaying content data currently acquirable and acquiring the content data selected by the user via the display from a content server.
Here, the reception device can acquire the content data from the content server by downloading, for example. In case of downloading, the reception device acquires the entire content data via the Internet, and starts the playback of the content data after storing the content data in a built-in storage medium. Accordingly, the reception device can playback high-quality content data regardless of the data acquisition rate.
On the other hand, as described in Patent Document 1, for example, a method for playing back content data already downloaded while downloading the content data has been proposed. Such a method is effective in that the playback can be started without waiting for the entire content data to be stored in the storage medium of the reception device.    [Patent Document] JP-A-2002-262267